


a sunday kind of love

by janewestin



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Parent Trap (1961), The Parent Trap (1998)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/F, Happily Ever After, Second Chances, The Parent Trap - Freeform, secret twin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21521188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janewestin/pseuds/janewestin
Summary: let's hear it for SECRET TWINS!and QUESTIONABLE PARENTING DECISIONS!**this story now has a prequel! check out "misty blue" (coauthored with wilfriede0815) on my works page.
Relationships: Miranda Priestly/Andrea Sachs
Comments: 138
Kudos: 420





	1. let's get together

**Author's Note:**

> well okay it was a plot bunny that just wouldn't go away so I guess it's getting its own story now even though my disney+ account is totally broken. here you go guys

_Miranda_

_2006_

It was over before it had begun, and who could really be surprised? It was a bad idea. It had _always_ been a bad idea. But Andrea had walked toward Miranda in Paris instead of away, and despite the fact that Miranda was nearly twice her age and her _boss—_ she shuddered, later, when she thought of it—she had entangled herself first in Miranda’s sheets, and then in her life. 

Six months. Six months of Andrea’s fervent confessions of love. Of Miranda’s every resolve crumbling as Andrea described the life they would build together. She wanted children, and she wanted them with Miranda. 

There was one embryo. One, frozen twelve years prior, when Miranda was thirty-two. It had just never been the right time.

It took. 

Two tiny flickers on the grayscale screen. Andrea’s doe eyes enormous with shock as the ultrasound wand moved gently over her stomach. 

“Twins,” she’d breathed, her fingers tightening on Miranda’s. _“Twins_.”

By the time Andrea bought her first maternity top, it had started to unravel. Miranda staying late at work. Andrea crying on the couch when she got home. The fighting. She was so young. _God_ , she was so young. 

What had she been _thinking_?

By the time the twins reached viability, they both had attorneys. Andrea’s salary at Bespoke would barely have paid for a personal-injury lawyer. There were children to consider, which was why Andrea acquiesced to Miranda paying the bills. 

Endless paperwork. Hours of meetings. Tears, and not just Andrea’s. 

By thirty-two weeks, Andrea had moved out. By thirty-six, they spoke only through the lawyers. Miranda wasn’t permitted in the delivery suite.

The papers were signed. The attorneys departed. 

Miranda fumbled clumsily with the straps of the car seat. Hoisted tiny Caroline, and walked out of Andrea Sachs’s life for good.

*

_2018_

She’d gotten a text from Emily that morning: the return flight was delayed. Mechanical issues, or something equally annoying. She should have chartered a jet.

“ _No_ , Mother,” Caroline had snapped, when she suggested it for the flight out. “ _Normal._ I want _normal.”_

Whatever that meant. 

_Excited to see you_ , she had texted Caroline, who had replied with a heart and an eye-roll emoji. 

Eight weeks. She hadn’t been alone in her house for anything near that amount of time for twelve years. Even Patricia seemed to be moping in Caroline’s absence.

Her phone buzzed. _Landed_ , Emily’s text said, and Miranda’s heart leapt. An hour and a half, maybe two, and her beloved daughter would be back where she belonged.

*

Patricia beat Miranda to the foyer, but not by much. 

“Patricia!” Caroline sputtered, her hands coming up in startled delight as the St. Bernard skidded to a halt on the marble. The big dog whuffed at Caroline’s coat before taking a step back, head tilted. She let out a low, confused rumble. 

“I must smell like camp,” Caroline stammered to Emily, who was still trying to maneuver four suitcases through the front door. 

Oh, her beautiful girl. Miranda half-wished that she, like Patricia, could barrel down the stairs. But decorum had to be maintained, didn’t it? No matter how great the joy at her daughter’s return. 

“Bobbsey,” she said, and Caroline looked up. Her freckled face paled.

“Mother,” she breathed.

The little purse she’d been carrying hit the floor, and then Caroline was charging up the last few steps. “ _Mother_ ,” she said again, her arms knotting almost painfully around Miranda’s waist. 

Miranda swayed with the sudden impact, reaching for the railing to keep from falling over. “Darling! My goodness. Such a display.”

“I’m sorry.” Caroline’s voice was muffled against her shoulder. “I just missed you.” Her arms tightened.

“I missed you too, Bobbsey.” Miranda planted a kiss on the top of Caroline’s head, then pulled back in surprise. “You cut your hair.”

Caroline bit her lip, blue eyes wide and uncertain. “Do you hate it?”

“Not at all.” Miranda twined a fiery lock around her forefinger. “Although I’d like to have Hannah clean it up a bit.”

The uncertain expression vanished, and Caroline grinned. “Yeah,” she said, releasing Miranda’s waist. “Yeah. Okay.”

Miranda touched her cheek. “Let’s get you unpacked.” She glanced at the foyer.

Emily grunted, heaving the suitcases behind her. “Coming,” she said. 

***

_Emily_

If you had told the Emily Charlton of twelve years ago that she would be Miranda’s personal assistant at the age of thirty-six, the Emily Charlton of twelve years ago would likely have stabbed you with a stiletto. But that was before Caroline. Before spit-up, and diaper changes, and temper tantrums. Before Emily had found herself wound, completely and immutably, around Caroline’s chubby little finger. 

She had been told by two physicians that she’d never bear children. That was actually rather fine with her, as she had no real desire to procreate. This did not keep her from falling completely in love with Miranda’s daughter. 

She found herself volunteering, with increasing frequency, for Caroline-related duties. Found herself, when she dropped off the Book, going up to soothe a crying Caroline in Miranda’s stead. When the baby was six months old, Miranda fired the nanny and asked Emily to move in. She said yes. 

She was never exactly _friends_ with Miranda. Never really got comfortable enough around her for late night confessions, or shared glasses of wine after a long day of work. But they got along well enough, and for Caroline, Emily would have borne much worse. 

She asked about Cassidy just before Caroline’s second birthday. She never made that mistake again. Never even thought about the other twin, really. 

At least, not until three days after Caroline’s return from music camp.

It was the _dog_. Patricia was normally never more than five feet away from Caroline. Now, though, she kept her distance. 

“What?” Caroline said, looking up from her iPad.

Emily blinked. “Sorry?”

Caroline’s eyes narrowed. “You’re staring at me,” she said.

“It’s just—” Emily’s gaze flicked to Caroline’s hand. “You’re biting your nails.”

Caroline jerked her hand out of her mouth. “Um,” she said, flushing. “Bad habit. I guess I...I guess I picked it up over the summer.” 

Something pinged in Emily’s brain. Something felt _wrong,_ and the words were out before she knew it. “What on earth is going on with you?”

The flush in Caroline’s cheeks deepened. “What—what do you mean?”

“I mean—” Emily stood up. She seen Caroline nearly every day of the girl’s life. She knew every mood, every eyelash, every freckle. And something was _not right_.

She felt her pulse pick up. Impossible. It was impossible.

“You’re leaving your clothes on the floor,” Emily said, taking a step toward Caroline. “You sing to yourself.”

Caroline bit her lip. “I changed a lot at camp, I guess.”

“It’s almost as if you’re—” No. Miranda would have known. _Surely._ She shook her head. Turned away.

And then Caroline’s voice behind her, very small. “Almost as if I were who, Emily?” she said. 

“Never mind,” Emily said. 

“Almost as if I were—” A pause. “Cassidy?”

Emily froze.

Two. There had been two.

She turned around. Very, very slowly.

“How—” she said, her voice the barest whisper. “How do you know about Cassidy?”

Caroline gulped.

“I am Cassidy,” she said.

***

_Cassidy_

“You have to tell her,” Emily says.

I know I do. She doesn’t have to _lecture_ me. It was always part of the plan. I just wasn’t expecting it to be this soon. 

“I will,” I snap, sounding mean, and she flinches. Caroline told me that Emily is almost a second mom. I think about the way my own mom reacts when I’m mean to her, and I feel bad. 

“Sorry,” I say, mumbling.

She gives me a narrow look and goes back to chopping. Caroline said that she learned how to cook specifically to make baby food for her. Caroline was _spoiled_. 

I’ve been thinking about what it would have been like if they’d switched us the other way. If I’d grown up with Mother, and Caroline with Mom. But imagining my life without Mom makes me feel weird and uneasy.

It’s not fair. We should have had them _both_.

I don’t want to tell her. Not yet. When she looks at me, I feel like the only person in the world. I love her so much already and I’ve only known her since Saturday. But Emily figured it out, and Caroline said that Emily is really bad at keeping secrets.

“Tomorrow,” I say, reaching over to grab a chunk of carrot before the knife comes down again. “I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

*

Unfortunately for me, I don’t get to wait. 

Caroline said she isn’t allowed to have any social media accounts. But Mother doesn’t really know how to use Instagram. I download the app and see that Caroline has messaged from my own account. 

_911_ , it says. _Mom is GETTING MARRIED_.

WHAT?!

*

“Mother?”

The door is open, but I stay in the hall. She’s so pretty, even without makeup. Her room looks like something out of a magazine. 

“Come in, Bobbsey,” she says, looking up from her laptop. She smiles. 

If it were Mom, I would barrel toward the bed and dive under the covers. I don’t know what’s allowed here. It seems like she can tell, because she pats the bed next to her. I crawl up, pulling my knees to my chest. 

“What’s wrong?” The smile fades a little. She looks worried.

I look at my ragged nails. “I have to go out of town tomorrow,” I tell her.

This gets a little laugh. “Oh?” she says, “and where, may I ask, are you going?” Her voice is playful, and I can’t take it any more. I duck down and pull the blanket over my head.

I feel her hand on the top of my head. “Caroline,” she says. 

“That’s where I have to go!” I yell into the pillow. “I have to go see Caroline!”

“Oh?” That little laugh again. “And where might Caroline be?”

I shut my eyes tight. Here goes nothing.

“In Napa,” I say, “with her mom, Andy Sachs.”

***

_Miranda_

Everything stopped.

Her laughter. Her movement. Her heart. _Time_. 

She pulled the blanket off Caroline’s head. Two wide blue eyes, looking up at her from a face filled with apprehension. 

“You’re not Caroline,” she whispered.

The blue eyes blinked. And then an answer, hoarse with terror, in a voice that was both Caroline’s and not. “That would be correct.”

Miranda’s eyes began to burn. Her heart had started beating again, and it seemed that it was overcompensating for its lack of movement a moment prior. “You’re Cassidy,” she managed to say.

Cassidy sat up. Lifted her chin, though her eyes were brimming with tears. “I am,” she said. “Caroline and I met at the camp and we decided to switch places. I’m sorry.” She swallowed hard. “But I’d never seen you, and I’d dreamt of meeting you my whole life. And Caroline felt the exact same way about Mom.”

Oh, darling girl. The one I thought I’d never see again. Stranger with Caroline’s face. Miranda’s heart felt like it might shatter. 

Cassidy was still talking, faster now, fear evident on her face. “We just sort of..sort of switched lives. I hope you’re not mad at me because I love you so much and I hope you can love me as me. And not...and not as Caroline.”

Miranda snapped back to herself. Looked at the daughter she’d given up, and folded her into her arms.

“I have loved you,” she whispered into Cassidy’s ear, “all your life.”

*

They had to be switched back, obviously, although the thought of it nearly wrenched Miranda’s heart from her chest. Now that Cassidy was here—now that they’d met each other—it was unthinkable that they could go back to the way things had been. Miranda was having a hard time remembering how they’d come up with this insane plan in the first place.

Cassidy hadn’t wanted to tell Andrea they were coming, which was ridiculous, of course. There were legal matters to think of, for one thing, and for another, she was not about to walk back into Andrea’s life without some warning. Although she was at a loss for how, exactly, to break the news that each of them had the wrong twin.

“I’ll tell her,” Cassidy volunteered. She seemed much more at ease now that she was no longer pretending to be Caroline. 

“You’ll do no such thing,” Miranda said. 

Cassidy shrugged. “She might already know.”

***

_Caroline_

“Mom’s been crying for two hours,” I tell Cassidy that evening. 

Cassidy laughs. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

“I could barely get away to call you,” I add. Mother _never_ cries.

“Get used to it,” Cassidy says. “You should see her during Christmas. Wells up at every commercial.”

“She hugs a lot,” I say, and although this is definitely unfamiliar, I find that it’s not as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. 

“Yeah. I miss that. Mother...doesn’t.”

That’s an understatement. “When do you get here?” I ask her. I’m not quite ready to give Mom up, but I am also terribly homesick.

“Tomorrow night,” Cassidy says. She doesn’t sound that excited, either. “I can’t believe she’s getting married.”

I make a face. “He’s _awful_ ,” I say. “All teeth and talk. I don’t know what she sees in him.”

“Yeah, well.” Cassidy’s voice sounds grimly determined. “She won’t see it for much longer, if I have anything to do with it.”

***

_Andy_

Andy couldn’t stop crying, and Caroline was, at this point, probably convinced that her mom was completely unhinged. She’d gone to bed an hour ago, and all Andy had managed to do was move to the hall outside her room and cry some more. Christian had called twice. Andy let it go to voicemail.

Caroline. Asleep eight feet away.

The weeks and months after their birth had been a waking nightmare. Andy had regretted the decision as soon as she’d signed the paperwork. She’d cobbled the pieces of her life back together, but she’d never stopped aching for the daughter she’d lost.

Cassidy would be here tomorrow. Both of them. _Together_. The thought made the tears start anew.

*

She fell asleep just before one AM. And sat straight up at 1:01 when she realized that she’d be seeing Miranda, too.

*

“Wear the black one,” Caroline said.

Andy turned around. Caroline—and how could she have ever thought this was Cassidy?—was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, watching her.

“You think so?” Andy said. She held up the red dress, examined herself in the mirror. 

Behind her, Caroline shook her head.

“Mother prefers a simple silhouette,” she said, with a prim little nod. Before Andy could sputter a response, she had disappeared back into Cassidy’s room.

*

Thirty minutes. 

Then twenty. Fifteen. Ten.

“Mom.” Caroline was staring at her. “You’re making me nervous.”

“ _I’m_ nervous,” Andy said, but she sat down. “Now where are they?”

Caroline checked Cassidy’s phone. “Five miles.” 

Five miles. Eight minutes, maybe nine, and they’d be together. All four of them, in one room, the way Andy had dreamed they’d be the moment she’d seen those two little heartbeats on the ultrasound screen. Before the yelling, and the fighting, and the slammed doors and icy silences. 

Andy felt her eyes start to sting. “You know,” she said, swallowing hard, “I haven’t seen the two of you together since the day you were born.” 

Cassidy, used to Andy’s emotions, would have rolled her eyes and said something snide. Caroline, though, just nodded. 

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I know.”

***

_Cassidy_

Caroline’s on the porch. Giant grin and waving with both hands as we pull up. Mother has gotten very, very quiet. 

I whip the door open the second the Uber driver puts it in park. 

“Cassidy—” Mother says behind me, but Caroline is whooping and I am too excited to do anything but sprint up the steps and hug my sister. We did it. We pulled it off. They’re together, and so are we.

Caroline spins me around, then seizes my wrist and drags me toward the door. “Let’s leave ‘em alone,” she says out of the corner of her mouth, even though Mother is just now stepping out of the car and Mom is nowhere to be seen.

But then the front door opens. 

I haven’t seen her in eight weeks and four days, but it feels like eight months. Like I’m a different person. Like we both are.

She’s wearing the one fancy dress she owns—the black one, the one she got when she went to Paris with Mother before we were born. She put on makeup, but it’s already running down her cheeks. My heart hurts, suddenly, seeing her. I glance back at Mother, who is standing stone-still in the driveway.

Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.

But then she opens her arms, and takes a step toward us, and the next thing I know I’m hugging my sister and my mom at the exact same time and I have never, ever been happier in my life. 

When she pulls back, her makeup really is wrecked, and Caroline is sniffling. 

“Both of you,” Mom says, wiping Caroline’s tears with her thumb. “Oh, my girls. Both of you.”

There’s a creak. I turn. I have almost forgotten about Mother. 

She’s standing behind us, her hands clasped together at her waist. Her face is so pale I think she might faint.

Mom’s arms around us loosen and fall. She straightens up. I feel Caroline’s hand slide from my wrist. A second later, her fingers tangle with mine. 

“Come on,” she hisses, and pulls me inside.

***

_Miranda_

She hadn’t thought it would hurt this much. 

Two redheaded girls, spinning and whooping on the porch, each momentarily indistinguishable from the other. She recognized her daughter— _no_ , she corrected herself. They were both her daughters. 

And then the front door opened, and Andrea stepped out.

She didn’t see Miranda. Not right away. She hugged both girls, touched their faces, marveled at them the way Miranda never could. In that, at least, she had not changed. 

When Miranda ascended to the porch, the stair creaked, and Andrea noticed her at last. She went white. Loosed her grip on the girls and stood. 

Miranda was dimly aware of Cassidy whispering to Caroline—or was it the other way around?—and then both girls were disappearing into the house, and it then it was just Andrea. Just Andrea, barefoot, wearing the dress Miranda had taken off her in Paris.

“Hi,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Andrea.” Miranda’s throat felt as though it was lined with cotton. “You look well.”

A blurt of watery laughter. Andrea smoothed the front of the dress with both hands. “Thanks,” she said. “I mean. So do you.”

It was the laugh that broke her. She could have dealt with Andrea angry, or sad, or even pretending that the past twelve years hadn’t happened. But that little sound, simultaneously mournful and bright, sliced through Miranda’s heart like a butcher knife. She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt Andrea’s hand on her arm. 

“Come on,” Andrea said gently. The diamond on her left hand flashed as she moved. “Come inside.”

***


	2. why don't you and i combine

_Andy_

It would have been less jarring if Miranda had walked up to Andy and punched her in the eye. She didn’t know what she had expected, but tears hadn’t even made the top five. 

“Come on,” she said, taking Miranda gently by the arm. “Come inside.” 

No sharp retort, just a silent nod. Andy snagged a box of tissues from the living room and handed one to Miranda, who nodded again and dabbed at her eyes. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

The girls had vanished, so Andy led Miranda into the kitchen.

“Do you,” she said, feeling at a loss. Miranda wasn’t crying now, but she wasn’t talking, either. “Do you want something to drink? There’s the Cab, of course...we had a pretty good Merlot two years ago... and I have, um, lemonade, and root beer...no Pellegrino, I’m afraid...” She trailed off. 

Miranda’s gaze was moving across the kitchen. Andy felt suddenly acutely self-conscious, remembering the luxury of the townhouse. Her last two books had done well, but housing was pricey in Napa, and she’d put most of the money into the vineyard. 

“I, um.” She felt herself beginning to blush. “I keep meaning to renovate, but it’s just never the right time.”

Miranda’s eyebrows went up. “No,” she said quickly, “no—I was just looking at Cassidy’s—” She gestured at the refrigerator, where several pencil sketches of horses were posted. 

“Oh.” Andy ducked her head, embarrassed at her error. “Yeah. She seems to have inherited your creativity.” 

“It’s a lovely home,” Miranda said softly.

There had been a time when Andy would have crossed oceans to hear Miranda speak that gently. To have Miranda look at anything Andy did with pride, with love. She felt the burn of tears at the corners of her eyes and swallowed hard. 

_I’m sorry,_ she wanted to say. Instead she said, “Where are you staying?”

She wanted both girls with her, but that would mean Miranda, too, and the thought of Miranda sleeping _in her home_ made her feel slightly lightheaded. And there was Christian to think about. He’d taken the news of the second daughter in stride, but Andy very much doubted that he would accept Miranda in her guest room with the same aplomb. 

“Bardessono,” Miranda said, looking suddenly uncomfortable. 

“You could have dinner with us.” The words were out before Andy could stop them. 

There was no way, Andy thought. Not after everything that had happened between them—after the things she’d said. That bridge had burned long ago. 

So she almost fell over with shock when Miranda said, “Yes. Thank you.”

  
  


***

_Cassidy_

“You should know better than this,” Lily says, wiping her eyes, “and so should I.”

“Five-thirty,” Caroline says briskly. She’s sitting next to me on the bed, trying to get her all of her newly short hair into a ponytail.

“I can’t believe it’s you.” Lily starts crying again. The screen goes dark; she’s put her phone down.

Caroline looks at me, as though to say _these are the adults in your life_ ? “So many _feelings_ ,” she mouths silently.

I shrug. We can’t all be Mother.

“I should not be scheming with twelve-year-olds,” Lily says, when she’s recovered enough to pick up the phone. “And what happens if they do hit it off, huh? I can’t afford to buy your half of the vineyard.” 

The thought makes my heart leap with hope. I know, in my heart, that Mom still loves Mother. She wouldn’t have kept that photo of them if she didn’t. Or the dress. And I _know_ she doesn’t love Christian. She just met him two months ago, for Pete’s sake. It makes _no_ sense. 

Caroline is as poised as Mother when she replies. “We cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Lily shakes her head. “I’m crazy,” she says. “See you at five-thirty.”

I blow her a kiss. “Thanks, Lil.”

***

_Miranda_

She took a car back to the hotel alone. Caroline had barely looked up when she left. Cassidy, though, had leapt up, darted over to her, and wrapped her in a hug tight enough to take her breath away.

“Come back quick,” she ordered. Miranda was so shocked that she was unable to do more than nod. 

Twelve years. She had missed nearly the entirety of one daughter’s childhood. A good plan, she had thought at the time. Each with a twin to love, and they never had to see each other again. It had been her idea. Now, it seemed, it was her regret. 

And Andrea...

Andrea had wanted to get married as soon as she’d seen the twins’ heartbeats. Miranda, veteran of three failed marriages, had not. Despite Andrea’s wheedling, despite her rationale, Miranda could simply not bring herself to commit to paper one more relationship that might not last. 

_You don’t want me here,_ Andrea had said, the townhouse key dangling from her fingertips. Tears dripped down her cheeks and splashed onto her shirt. 

Miranda _hadn’t_ wanted her there. She was tired of the endless angst, of the emotional void she seemed utterly unequipped to fill. She hadn’t responded, but that was response enough. Andrea had dropped the key on the floor and walked out. 

At the time, it was vindication. Confirmation that she was right not to marry a girl _twenty-two_ years her junior. 

Now, though.

“I don’t get it,” Cassidy had said on the plane, as she gnawed her thumbnail ragged. “Mom doesn’t _date_ . She _never_.” 

_She never_. The words dark with bewilderment and adolescent ire. 

What if Miranda had been more patient? Had not been so quick to dismiss Andrea’s requests—many though there were—as the irksome neediness of a lover far too young?

“Ma’am.” 

Miranda jumped. The Uber driver was looking at her expectantly.

“Oh.” They had arrived at the hotel. “Yes.”

She gathered her bags, rather wishing she’d brought Roy on the journey. Or, at the very least, employed a driver for the duration.

The room was perfectly adequate, although small. She had nearly three hours until she was to return to Andrea’s home. 

Three hours. She suddenly wished she had not pared down her packing list quite so much. She had not imagined she would feel compelled to dress for dinner, much less impress Andrea. But seeing her in _that dress—_ throat long and pale, collarbones curving delicately—Miranda was knocked violently back to that night in Paris. To low laughter, and wandering hands, and Andrea’s lips on hers. 

_I almost left_ , she’d murmured into Miranda’s ear. _You drive me so_ crazy— _if I couldn’t have you—_

And then she hadn’t said anything else at all.

Miranda spent far too long on her makeup, on her hair. She had brought four outfits and tried three of them on. Ridiculous. She was being ridiculous. Andrea would be married by next week. 

_Ridiculous_ , she thought again, and reached for the fourth.

***

_Caroline_

It’s not _scheming_ . I’ve never met anyone like Lily, who talks to me like I’m an adult—like I’m one of her friends. Who accuses me of things like _scheming_. 

“Did you find them?” Cassidy says from behind an armful of linen. 

I hold up the box of half-burned candles. “They’re not in great shape.”

“It’ll look fine, trust me.” Cassidy casts a glance toward the kitchen. Mom has been in there for the past hour and a half, re-making everything she already cooked, even though it was fine to begin with. She’s nervous. I can tell. I take this as a good sign, as I took Mother’s expression when she told me the reservation for French Laundry was canceled. She’d been looking at Mom when she said it. 

“I’m going back to the hotel to freshen up,” she’d said, still not looking at me. “Andrea says you may stay, if you wish.”

“Yeah,” I said, hardly daring to breathe. 

After she’d left and Mom bolted for the kitchen, Cassidy grabbed my arm. “It’s _working,”_ she hissed. 

“ _Don’t_ jinx it,” I had hissed back. 

“This way.” Cassidy pushes through the back door to the patio. 

“Oh.” I almost drop the box of candles in surprise. “It’s really _nice_ out here.” 

Cassidy shrugs. “It’s okay, yeah.” 

The patio overlooks the vineyard. There’s a wooden terrace thing overhead draped with grapevines and Christmas lights. The metal table’s a little rusted, but Cassidy tosses the lace cloth over it and it instantly looks better.

“Candles,” she says, and sure enough, once they’re on the table, the drippy, half-gone candles look as though they’re like that on purpose. 

She disappears into the house for a moment and comes back with two plates in one hand and two wine glasses in the other. “Mom loves a Cab,” she says, setting the glasses down, “so I picked the Bordeaux ones.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I take the plates and set them on the table. “Silverware,” I say.

“Can’t.” She shakes her head. “I got these from the china hutch, but the silverware’s all in the kitchen.”

“Okay, then what?” I say. “Music?”

Her eyes light up. “Yeah! Come on!”

I follow her back to her room, where she flops on her bed and opens her laptop. Mother doesn’t even let me have Instagram, so I’m shocked when Cassidy logs into her own Spotify account.

“Mother likes Rachmaninov,” I say, watching her scroll through playlist names.

She looks at me blankly. “What the heck is _that_?” she says. “Here’s one.”

I look. It’s titled _Love Songs - 00s_. “Who’s Michael Bubble?”

Cassidy shrugs.

I keep reading. Rihanna, Taylor Swift. Someone named James Blunt. “No,” I say decisively. “Mother will hate this.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Well, there’s no way Mom’s going to get in the mood with Rock-whatever.”

We decide, finally, on a playlist entitled _Romantic Oldies Date Night_. Cassidy links her computer to the patio speakers. “Don’t let me forget to turn it on,” she instructs. 

“It’s almost five,” I say, then: “I don’t hear her in the kitchen.”

We sneak down the hall, but Mom is nowhere to be found. I can smell chicken roasting. Her bedroom door is closed. 

Cassidy smashes the side of her head against the door. “I hear the shower,” she says in a loud whisper, her eyes wide. “She’s getting ready an _hour_ early. She’s going to put on _makeup_.” 

She sounds particularly excited by this. I’m not entirely sure why—Mother wears makeup to bed, practically. 

“I hope Lily isn’t late,” I say. What I mean is: I hope _Mother_ isn’t late.

And, strangely, Cassidy seems to know exactly what I mean. She straightens up and slings an arm around my shoulders. 

“Don’t worry, sis,” she says confidently. “She won’t be.”

***

_Miranda_

Nerves.

She didn’t want to admit it, but she was nervous. She had expected to pick up Caroline and go. She hadn’t expected that she would be spending any real _time_ with Andrea. Because what could they possibly have to say to each other?

Only twelve years. Only the entire story of their children.

If there was no traffic—and there was no reason to think there would be, at five-forty on a Wednesday—she would arrive three minutes early. She spent far too long in the Uber thinking about the consequences of knocking before the agreed-upon time. 

It would never have worked between them, even if she had chased Andrea down the street after that last terrible fight. Even if she had begged to be allowed to attend the birth. Even if she had, just once, asked Andrea’s forgiveness. 

There was a car in the drive.

She felt her jaw tighten. The little sedan hadn’t been there when she and Cassidy had arrived. And then the nauseating thought: what if this was _Christian’s_ car? 

Surely not. Surely Andrea would not have brought _him_ here. But the bifurcation of their little family had been Miranda’s idea, and Andrea owed her nothing. 

Steeling herself for the inevitable, Miranda rang the bell. 


	3. why don't we make a scene

_Andy_

She might throw up. She really, actually could barf. She thought it was just something that happened in movies, but her stomach was churning like a fishing boat in a hurricane.

She finished her makeup off with a cherry-red lip, then wiped it off and reapplied in a muted pink. There was such a thing as trying too hard, and it wasn’t like she was twenty-four. And anyway, it wasn’t like Miranda _cared_ what she looked like. It wasn’t like _she_ cared if Miranda cared. She had a _fiancé,_ for Pete’s sake. She was marrying Christian in four days. 

So why did she feel like she was going to puke?

She’d changed out of the black dress—it was a ridiculous idea in the first place—and put on something a little more age-appropriate and a little less nostalgic. No heels. Heels were for dates, and this was definitely not a date. 

Dinner with the kids. That was all it was. Dinner with both girls, together, before Caroline crossed the country and it was who-knew-when until Andy and Cassidy saw her again.

The thought made her nausea worse. Better to let that one lie, for now.

“Girls?” She glanced down the hall. Cassidy’s bedroom door was closed. 

“Living room,” came Caroline’s voice from the other direction. 

They were on the couch, playing on their phones, Caroline’s foot propped on Cassidy’s knee. Cassidy’s jaw dropped when Andy walked in.

“ _Mom_ ,” she breathed. “You look _gorgeous.”_

Andy flushed. “Oh, cut it out.”

She almost— _almost_ —missed the look that passed between them. The way Cassidy’s eyebrows went up. The little satisfied smirk on Caroline’s lips. 

“All right,” she said, looking from one twin to the other, “what’s going on?”

Two sets of blue eyes went wide. Caroline opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, the doorbell rang.

If Andy’s heart had leaped any higher, it would have shot right out of her mouth and across the room. She whirled so fast she almost fell over. 

“I’ll get it,” she said. It was a pointless statement, because neither of her daughters had stood. Instead, they had seized each other’s hands at the sound of the doorbell.

She walked on legs that felt like cooked spaghetti toward the front door. Her pulse roared in her ears. Five steps to the door, then three, then two, then one. She put her hand on the knob. Turned.

Pulled.

***

_Miranda_

The door opened, and Miranda found herself suddenly unable to breathe.

It wasn’t that Andrea looked beautiful. It wasn’t that her hair was pulled back, baring her delicate throat; that her eyes were made up, making them look larger and lovelier than Miranda remembered. It wasn’t that the dress she’d chosen—white, with a scoop neck and a green belt, and printed with blue flowers—hugged her breasts and flared gracefully at her hips. It wasn’t even the way Andrea’s lips parted when she saw Miranda, or the nearly imperceptible lift of her chest as her breath quickened.

It was the _hope_ in her expression. That wretched, awful hope that had damned Miranda from the start. 

“Hi,” Andrea breathed. 

“I—” Miranda lifted the bottle of pinot grigio, and realized immediately how foolish she’d been to bring wine to a woman who owned a vineyard.

But Andrea was already lifting the bottle from her hands. “Thank you,” she said. She stepped back. “Come in.”

Miranda stepped into the foyer. Breathed in. And was abruptly dizzied by the scent of Andrea’s perfume. 

“Mother.” Caroline was suddenly at her side. Freckled face upturned, forehead wrinkled with worry. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, bobbsey.” She touched Caroline’s hair. “I’m fine.”

“You look nice.” Cassidy, perched on the armrest of the couch, her cheeks pink and her expression oddly joyful. “I like your shoes.”

It felt so strange, talking to this child with Caroline’s face, but who was so very different. “Thank you, my darling.”

“Should we—should we sit down?” Andrea started toward the kitchen, but Cassidy reached out and snagged her wrist.

“Actually,” she said, “we’re not eating in the kitchen.”

***

_Cassidy_

Holy _crap_ , the way they’re looking at each other.

It’s all I can do to keep from jumping up and down with glee. Mom _never_ gets dressed up like this. She definitely wouldn’t for stupid _Christian_ . And Mother looks like she walked right out of—well, of _Runway_ , I guess. She’s wearing the spikiest, fanciest heels I’ve ever seen in my life. They look like they cost more than our car.

I want to grab Caroline by the shoulders and shake her and shriek _IT’S GONNA WORK_ , but of course that would be crazy. That would be getting way ahead of ourselves.

Instead, I grab Mom’s arm as she walks past me. “Actually, we’re not eating in the kitchen.”

She stops, looks at me with confusion. “What?”

Caroline, taking her cue, laces her hand with Mother’s and pulls her toward the back door. “Actually,” she adds primly, “we’re dining _al fresco_ tonight.”

Mom laughs. “ _Al fresco_ ,” she repeats, gazing at Caroline with something like wonder.

I whip the curtain back from the sliding glass door with a flourish. “Your table, madames.”

Mom and Mother both freeze.

Behind their backs, Caroline shoots me a grin. I pull my phone out of my back pocket.

Lily did great. It’s not that I didn’t _want_ Mother to eat Mom’s cooking. I do. Eventually. Just not tonight.

“Girls.” Mother’s voice is the faintest of whispers. “What—”

I hit Play on my Spotify app, and the music starts. The first song on the playlist. Edith Piaf. Mom goes pale.

“The table...is set for two,” she says, sounding dazed.

“That’s the other surprise.” Caroline’s grin looks like it might come right off her face. She slides the door open. “I’m sorry to say we won’t be dining with you tonight.” 

“Oh, you won’t.” Mother’s words should sound like a question, but weirdly, they don’t. 

“I’m taking them out,” Lily says, stepping out of my room, and Mom and Mother both jump.

Mom’s eyes go wide. _“Lily_ ,” she snaps. “You were in on this?”

Lily holds up both hands. “Innocent bystander at _most_ ,” she says, looking as though she’s trying not to smile. “They just asked if we could go for pizza.”

Mom gives her a _Look_ . “So all that just appeared out of nowhere,” she says, gesturing at the food on the table. It’s from Angele—Caroline suggested French Laundry, but yeah right on getting take-out from _there—_ and there’s a _lot_ of it. I’ll owe Lily until I graduate college, probably.

Lily shrugs, still making that biting-back-a-smile face, and backs toward the foyer. “Come on, girls,” she says.

I drop Mom’s hand, and Caroline lets go of Mother’s. We wave at them, but I don’t think they notice.

***

_Andy_

“Edith Piaf,” Miranda murmured. There was a tiny, fond smile on her lips. She stepped onto the patio. 

“I might have romanticized Paris a little,” Andy admitted, following her. 

Candles dripped, half-burned, onto a lace tablecloth she had forgotten she owned. A basket of assorted bread was nestled between plates of food: steak tartare, oysters on the half shell, boeuf bourguignon. A cheese board adorned with grape leaves was balanced precariously on the edge of the table. A bottle of Andy’s best Cabernet aired on the sideboard.

“These girls,” Miranda said softly, touching the small Eiffel Tower replica beside the cheese board. 

“I bought that the day we left.” Andy came around behind Miranda and pulled out one of the chairs.

Miranda looked at her, and Andy wasn’t sure if the surprise on her face was because of the gesture, or what she’d just said. “You did?”

“Mm.” Andy scooted the chair back in as Miranda sat. “Crappy tourist kiosk by duty-free.” She reached for the wine.

“If you’d wanted a replica—”

“I know.” Andy filled Miranda’s glass halfway, then reached for her own. “But it meant something to get it at the airport, you know? Like...like a reminder that we were flying back together.” Her cheeks burned. She couldn’t meet Miranda’s gaze.

She expected Miranda to say something incisive, some barb aimed at the soft belly of her sentiment. She looked up in sharp shock when Miranda spoke quietly.

“Andrea,” she said, “it was a mistake.”

Andy’s stomach dropped through the floor. So this was it. The words she’d been dreading for the past twelve years. 

_How dare you_ , she wanted to say. How dare you, when this _mistake_ gave us our children. She stayed silent. Waited.

“I shouldn’t have—” but wait, wait. Miranda’s voice was suddenly uneven, wavering like a silk scarf in a breeze. She halted, swallowed. Tried again. “I should never have pushed you to—to keep them apart.”

It hit Andy like a lightning bolt. That what Miranda was saying—in a voice tight with emotion—was not that the mistake had been _them._

_Oh_. Her eyes burned.

She dug her teeth into her lower lip to keep the tears at bay. “We decided together.”

“You know that’s not true.” A little edge to Miranda’s tone now. 

Andy’s gaze shot up. She stared. “What do you mean?” she said.

Miranda’s spine straightened; her chin lifted, just a little. That obstinate face that had made Andy so insane in the final months of their relationship. “I insisted. You wanted to find another way, and I refused.”

“That—” Andy sputtered, feeling a little kindling of anger spark to life in her chest. “Come on, Miranda. You know that’s not true. We talked about it for _weeks_.”

“You were too young to—” 

The kindling caught. Andy was on her feet before she knew what she was doing. “Will you kindly _stop_ erasing my agency,” she said sharply.

Miranda’s jaw tightened. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said coldly.

“You _always_ did this!” Andy exploded. She turned on her heel, both hands in the air. “ _Andy’s too young_ and _She doesn’t know what she’s doing_ . Like you know everything. Like you know _anything_. God!” 

She heard the scrape of metal on stone as Miranda slid the chair back and stood. “I know that it would never have worked.” These words even icier than the last.

“Oh, _please_ .” Andy turned. Saw that Miranda’s face was pale, her eyes enormous, her expression utterly at odds with the tone she’d been using. “You didn’t want it to work. You didn’t want to _try_.”

Miranda actually flinched, as though Andy had reached out and slapped her. “You don’t believe that.”

“I don’t have a lot of evidence to the contrary,” Andy snapped. 

Miranda took a step back, then another. She put one hand out for support, found nothing, and let it fall. 

“No,” she said quietly, her voice completely flat. “No, I suppose you don’t.”

***

_Miranda_

She looked, as she so often had back in those days, as though she was teetering on the precipice of total emotional collapse. Dark eyes wide and tear-filled. Hands aflutter, shaking. Her voice unsteady, the sound of it making Miranda want to _push back_ , to dig her heels in and refuse whatever was requested.

Now, though, there was something beneath the distress. A narrow line of red. A cord of rage that hadn’t been there twelve years ago.

“I’m sorry,” Miranda said.

She was expecting her apology to be the balm on Andrea’s high temper, as it had been all those years ago. Andrea hated being angry, and she especially hated being angry at Miranda. 

“Go fuck yourself,” Andrea said.

The sheer vulgarity of the words made Miranda take a staggering step back, almost turning her ankle on one Blahnik. “ _Excuse_ me?”

“You heard me.” Andrea’s voice was tight with fury.

“Andrea.” Grasping now. “Andrea, I—”

“Miranda.” Andrea looked her straight in the eye. Tears trembled on her lower lashes, but didn’t fall. “You have to leave. Now. I can’t talk to you about this tonight, so you need to get out.”

She’d never felt like this before. Never felt like she was tumbling down the side of a mountain, like the very earth beneath her feet had been yanked away. She took a step back, and then another, and then she turned.

And got out.

***

_Lily_

_You can bring them home now._

Six words. Not exactly the tone of a happily reunited _meant-to-be_ . She was hopeful. She really was. She _liked_ Miranda for a minute there—a short minute, a very long time ago—but she never really _trusted_ her. Cassidy, though—Cassidy could get Lily to buy into just about anything, and when Cassidy turned out to be Caroline? 

Well, it was easy to see why she got sucked in.

“Hey.” She came up behind the twins, who were gleefully stomping at a Dance Dance Revolution console. 

They didn’t hear her; the music was blasting. 

“ _Cass_ ,” Lily shouted.

Both girls turned. “ _What?”_ Cassidy yelled back over the music.

Lily jerked her chin at the door. “Home,” she said.

*

The car was very, very quiet.

Finally, from the backseat. “She went back to the hotel?” Caroline’s voice was small. 

“Sounds like it,” Lily said. She was trying very hard to remain neutral—Andy instigated her fair share of fights, after all—but it wasn’t easy. Not with Cassidy on the verge of crying and Caroline shrunk into a tiny ball in the corner of the car. _Fucking Miranda._

“You stay with us,” Cassidy commanded Caroline, her voice wobbling on the last word. “She can get you tomorrow.”

“Cass—” Lily started.

“Shut up,” Cassidy said. Her voice was thick with tears, and Lily couldn’t bring herself to administer even the smallest reprimand.

***

_Andy_

She couldn’t sleep. 

She’d tucked both girls into Cassidy’s bed—both pale and tired-looking, and Cassidy uncharacteristically quiet—and then packed up the uneaten food, which had surely cost a small fortune. She’d make the girls bread pudding in the morning. 

She poured herself a second glass of the Cabernet and curled on the grimy padded chaise in the corner of the patio. Miranda Priestly, ruining her sleep once more.

She shouldn’t have kicked Miranda out. She _really_ shouldn’t have sworn. She didn’t even _like_ swearing. Not much, anyway. 

The girls had looked so heartbroken. It wasn’t a subtle thing, what they were doing. It was misguided, in that way things are when you’re twelve years old, but it was sweet. And, Andy had thought, mostly harmless. 

She knocked back the last sip of the Cab and reached for the bottle. Yeah. Maybe not so harmless after all.

It was just _astonishing_ how Miranda could _still_ get to her after all this time. How she could still be so utterly infuriating. And how she still hated, hated, _hated_ being angry with her.

She was reaching for her phone before she even realized what she was doing. It was too late. She’d had too much wine. She shouldn’t be drunk-texting Miranda. It was a really, really bad idea. A terrible—

_I’m sorry_.

Andy blinked confusedly at her phone. Had she _already_ sent the text and forgotten? 

No. The text balloon was gray, and on the left side of the screen. Sent to Andy eighteen minutes ago. _I’m sorry._

“Well,” Andy said, squinting at the screen. “Fuck me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is curious, the dress Andy wears for dinner is the same one Maureen O’Hara is wearing in the 1961 version during the scene when she first meets Vicky :)


	4. we'd be a crazy team

She didn’t reply to Miranda that night. She didn’t even reply at seven in the morning, when she woke up with a headache and an evil taste in her mouth. She dragged herself out of bed and made the bread pudding—drinking three cups of coffee in the process—then sat down on the couch.

_I’m sorry too,_ she sent back, then _Come over and we’ll talk._

_Thirty minutes,_ came the reply.

She was there in twenty, looking a little less polished than the night before, a little more tired. “Hi,” Andy said. 

Miranda gave her a wan little smile. “Good morning.”

They sat at the patio table with coffee. It wasn’t exactly a sunrise, but the few clouds in the sky and the warm yellow sun on the grapevines were nice, all the same. 

“It always happens, doesn’t it,” Miranda said quietly, looking down into her mug.

Andy let out a rueful little laugh. “Yeah,” she said. 

“Well.” The word came out as a sigh. “It won’t happen any more.”

It should have come as a relief. Should have lifted a weight off Andy’s shoulders, to know that it was all out in the open now. That the twins could be together, and she didn’t have the spectre of her failed relationship with Miranda hovering over her for the rest of her life. She could move on, marry Christian, live happily ever after in the California sunshine.

So why did she suddenly feel so despondent?

“What time’s your flight?” She forced the words. 

“Four.” It sounded stilted, as though Miranda, too, was dragging her replies up from the depths. 

Andy glanced over at her. She was sitting stiffly, lips tight, gazing out over the vineyard. “I, um—it would be nice to have Caroline here on Saturday. For, for the wedding.” She tripped a little over the last word.

Miranda inhaled sharply. Her posture became, if possible, even more rigid. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we both have commitments at home.”

Andy’s stomach clenched. It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected Miranda’s response, but it stung, all the same. “Sure,” she said. “No problem.”

A noise behind them. They both turned as the glass door slid open. 

“Good morning,” one twin said.

“Good morning,” the other parroted.

Andy looked at Miranda.

Miranda looked at Andy.

“Girls,” said Miranda, a little crease appearing between her eyebrows, “why are you dressed like that?”

***

_Cassidy_

It was Caroline’s idea, which proves that she’s way less uptight and goody-goody than she wants people to think. I’ve always thought of myself as a Fred Weasley. I’m pretty excited to have found my George.

“We’ve talked it over,” Caroline says, in a perfect imitation of me, “and we decided we’re getting ripped off.”

Mother’s eyebrows go up. “I’m sorry?” she says, in a quiet, dangerous voice.

“What we mean is,” I add, taking on Caroline’s posh prep-school lilt, “we want to spend our campout together.”

The eyebrows climb higher. “ _Campout?_ ” 

“ _Cassidy_.” Mom turns to Caroline, and I have to bite back my glee. “That’s not for another three weeks.”

“Excuse me,” Mother says waspishly. “What campout, exactly?”

Mom sighs. “We do an end-of-summer campout at the state park every year. Two nights.”

“Right,” Caroline says. “And we’re not going to get to do it together otherwise, and we want to.” 

She’s talking like herself again, so I let my voice relax. “Yeah,” I say. “So whoever’s Caroline—”

She grins at me. “And we won’t tell—”

I grin back. “Isn’t going back to New York today.”

Mom looks like she’s trying not to laugh. Mother, on the other hand, looks about six seconds from a full-on tantrum. 

“ _Caroline_ ,” she snaps, taking my arm. “This is ridiculous. Go change at once.”

It’s honestly only because of Caroline that I’m not completely terrified. Mother angry is _scary_. No wonder she’s got an entire magazine scampering at her beck and call. 

Caroline’s voice, now sounding completely normal. “Are you _sure_ that’s Caroline?” 

Mother’s eyes widen and her gaze shoots back to Caroline. “Of course I’m sure,” she says sharply.

“Kind of hard to tell, though,” I say, mimicking Caroline again, and then adding, “ain’t it?”

“Ain’t it?” Caroline echoes.

Mother looks absolutely _furious_ . “ _Isn’t_ it,” she bites. “Now stop this. At once. We’re going to miss our flight.”

I grin. “That’s the whole point.”

“Andrea.” Mother turns to Mom at last. “Will you—” She breaks off.

Mom draws her eyebrows together in an expression that is _almost_ convincingly serious. She turns to me. “Cassidy.”

Caroline pipes up. “Yeah, Mom?”

“Yeah, Mom?” I say, in exactly the same voice.

Mom’s fake-mad face almost cracks. “That’s not funny,” she says, but the way her voice goes up at the end of her sentence indicates that it actually really is. 

“That’s not funny,” I tell Caroline sternly. 

She turns to Mom. “That’s not funny.”

Mom’s lips twitch. She’s dangerously close to laughing. I can always tell. “This one’s Cassidy,” she says, putting her hand on Caroline’s shoulder. “The smart aleck.”

Mother’s mouth is a straight line. Her face is bright red with fury. “Are you _sure_?” 

“Of course I’m sure.” Mom leans toward Caroline. Examines her face, then looks down at her hands. She’s bitten her nails down, just like mine. Then she looks at me, then back at Caroline. Then, finally, at Mother. 

“You know,” she says, a smile creeping over her face, “actually I’m not.”

***

_Andy_

“I think they’re ready to listen,” said the twin closer to Miranda. 

Andy had a sneaking suspicion that if they’d grown up together, she would have _significantly_ more gray hair. She should be as outraged as Miranda that the girls were playing the secret identity card again, but she just—she _couldn’t_. It was too funny. Funny, and something else--something that wreaked havoc with her heartstrings. 

They were together, doing the things twins were supposed to do. Things they should have been doing for the past twelve years. She knew she shouldn’t be indulging them— _encouraging_ them—but it made her so incredibly _happy._

“Here’s the deal,” Andy’s twin said, slouching over the back of the couch exactly like Cassidy always did. “We leave for the camping trip immediately. _Together_. And when we get back on Friday, we tell you who’s Cassidy—”

Miranda’s twin chimed in. “And who’s Caroline.”

“Deal?” 

Two freckled chins lifted. Two jaws jutted forward. 

Andy looked at Miranda.

Miranda looked at Andy.

They both sighed. 

*

Lily seemed entirely unsurprised when Andy told her that she and Miranda had been hijacked, and that the vineyard operations for the next two days were going to have to be in her hands. 

“Harry’s out next week, so he said he’’d do the first set of grafts today,” Andy said, phone between her shoulder and ear as she folded cargo shorts into her beat-up Patagonia. 

“Yep,” Lily said.

“And we have that meeting with the fertilizer guys, um, that’s tomorrow at—”

“At three, Andy. I know.” Lily sounded like she was smiling. “Just have fun, okay?”

“You knew about this,” Andy said, yanking the pack’s drawstring closed and almost dropping the phone. “ _J’accuse_.” 

“ _Aie pitié de moi,”_ Lily said, laughing. “See you Friday.”

*

“You’re not serious,” Christian said.

Andy grimaced. This phone call was a lot less fun than the last one. “Afraid I am,” she said. “Two days. That’s all.”

Incredulous laughter. He’d never sounded like that before. “You can’t go on vacation with your ex,” he said, and Andy heard the warning undertone in his voice. 

“I’m not going on _vacation_ ,” she said defensively. “It’s two days with my kids. She won’t even be in the same tent.”

“ _Oh_.” Derisively now. “Different tents. Well, that changes everything.”

“Don’t get sarcastic,” Andy snapped. 

“Then don’t make stupid decisions,” Christian snapped back.

Andy’s heart rate picked up. “It’s not like I had a _choice_ ,” she said. “The girls wouldn’t tell us who was who.”

Christian snorted. “They’re _twelve,_ ” he said. “Make them.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“Did I stutter?” Christian said. “I said _make_ them. You’re their mom, aren’t you?”

Oh, no. No. Absolutely not.

“I’ll see you when I get back,” Andy said coldly, and ended the call.

*

The twins informed her—together, in that back-and-forth voice they’d been using all morning—that Miranda had not brought anything even remotely approximating camping gear or clothing. Andy had more than enough, so she found an old backpack in the garage and handed it to Miranda.

Miranda looked at it as though it was a bag of discarded McDonald’s trash, or a particularly disgusting bug. She held it with two fingertips. “Thank you,” she said.

“You know,” Andy said, biting back her amusement, “camping happens _outdoors.”_

“So I’m told.” Miranda put the bag on the couch.

“We could.” Andy chewed her lip. Looked down at the backpack, then back up at Miranda. “We could just, um, get a cabin, or something. Instead of the tents, I mean.”

Miranda actually perked up a little. “I’m listening.”

“They have some nice ones. They aren’t in the state park, but they’re close to it.” Andy twisted her hands together. “We could still hike. I mean, the girls would be disappointed if—Would that be better?”

Miranda was gazing at her, a strange expression on her face.

“Yes,” she said at last, and looked away. “Thank you. Yes.”

*

Andy figured out who was whom when she broke the news that the tents wouldn’t be happening. 

“But Mom, we _always—_ “ Cassidy caught herself. 

Caroline glared. “ _Shh_.”

Andy grinned. Glanced back toward the living room, where Miranda was balefully loading the backpack with Andy’s old hiking clothes.

“Don’t worry,” she said, leaning over to kiss Cassidy’s cheek. “I won’t tell.”

***

_Miranda_

She was beginning to feel a bit as though she had been transported against her will into a parallel universe. Nigel assured her that things were _fine_ at the office, completely _fine_ , everything was going _swimmingly_ and that she should take her time—a conversational grace note that set every alarm bell ringing. 

She should be home. She should be working. She should be anywhere but the front seat of a Toyota Highlander, held hostage by two willful almost-teenagers. 

“Where are we going?” one of them asked.

She couldn’t even identify the daughter she’d raised. She wasn’t, at this point, sure of anything at all. 

“Bothe Grove,” Andrea said, flipping the blinker to merge. 

Miranda glanced at the backseat and saw both girls typing on their phones. “Huh,” the twin on the left said. She held her phone out to her sister. “Not bad.”

The twin on the right raised her eyebrows and tipped her head. “Hm,” she said approvingly. The expression, and the sound she made, were so like Andrea that Miranda knew at once that this was Cassidy. 

Cassidy looked up from the phone. Met Miranda’s eyes, and must have seen the realization there. She paled and looked guiltily at Caroline. Caroline, absorbed in her phone, didn’t notice.

Miranda turned back around. She should be in New York. That much was true. And yes, the twin on the right was _probably_ Cassidy.

But she couldn’t be sure, so it couldn’t be helped.


	5. and though we haven't got a lot

_Caroline_

I know Cassidy is disappointed that we aren’t _camping_ camping, but the thing is, I’m kind of glad. I’ve never actually been in a tent. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone _else_ who’s been in a tent, either. Some of the girls at school have been to those beach bubble things in the Maldives, but I don’t think those count.

“Ooh,” Cassidy breathes as we pull up to our cabins. I slide my foot over and nudge hers warningly. She shouldn’t sound so impressed or they’ll figure out who’s who.

“Nice,” I say, hoping I sound as awed as Cassidy. 

They’re sort of almost-tents—not cabins at all, really. They’re made of fabric, anyway, and set up high on wooden foundations. The guy at the park entrance said they were pretty small. Mom rented two. 

“One for Cassidy and me, and—”

That was as far as she got before Cassidy squawked “No! We’re staying _together_.” And grabbed my wrist so hard it hurt.

“This one’s ours!” Cassidy flings the door open as soon as Mom puts the car into park. I have to hurry to keep up with her. I wish she’d slow down just a _little_. 

But Cassidy’s excitement is contagious, and besides, the tents are _really_ nice. There are matching purple chairs on the deck of ours.

“Left side!” I whoop, leaping up the steps. “Ooh.”

Two double beds with an end table between them. _Real_ beds, not the air mattresses Cassidy swore we’d be sleeping on. There are lamps, and blankets, and everything. There’s even a window, made out of some kind of mesh.

“Where’s the bathroom?” I say, wrinkling my nose.

“Up there.” Mom ducks into our tent. She’s smiling. “This is not camping.”

“It’s camping enough for me,” Mother says from behind her, but she looks relieved. 

“I want to see yours,” I say, tossing my backpack onto my bed. “Come on, C—” 

I catch myself, but only just, and I swear I see Mother smile.

***

_Andy_

It had one bed.

Well, one bed and a futon. Still, Andy felt a tiny bit as though she was playing a key role in some cosmic romantic comedy, because the only two tents the manager had left were the one with the two doubles—which the girls had laid claim to immediately—and the king bed with the futon. Who filled up a campground on a _Wednesday_? 

Both girls came to a screeching halt when they saw the king bed. Cassidy clamped a hand over her mouth. Caroline turned bright red.

“ _This_ one is mine,” Andy said loudly, pushing past both girls and putting her backpack on the futon. 

Cassidy made a noise like an agitated guinea pig and bolted from the tent, Caroline on her heels. 

“Good that we’re establishing healthy boundaries with them early on,” Andy said, rolling her eyes. 

Miranda cleared her throat. “Well. I suppose they’d better get accustomed to it.”

Andy felt her face heat up. She opened her mouth to reply—to _laugh—_ then realized abruptly that Miranda meant _Christian_. 

“Oh,” she said darkly. “Yeah. Right.”

Miranda picked up Andy’s backpack and placed it carefully on the luggage rack by the tent door. “You should take the bed,” she said.

Andy looked at her blankly. Miranda, on a _futon_? 

Something in her expression must have struck Miranda as funny, because the tension around her mouth faded. She actually smiled a little. “I am not so entitled that I cannot sleep on a futon, Andrea.”

The dissonance between a futon and _Miranda Priestly_ was so vast that Andy forgot about Christian. Forgot about everything, actually, for a moment. 

“I want to remember that sentence forever,” she said, when she’d recovered. She wiped her eyes. It had been a long time since she’d laughed that hard.

Miranda smiled.

*

“This is _really_ not camping,” Cassidy said under her breath, just loud enough for Andy to hear.

Andy put an arm around Cassidy’s shoulders and pulled her in, planting a kiss on the top of her head. She smelled like campfire. “Give them a break,” she murmured back, watching Caroline spear an artisan kielbasa onto a teak-handled toasting fork that looked like it had come from Williams-Sonoma. “They’re indoorsy.”

Cassidy snorted into her lemonade. 

*

At a quarter to ten, Caroline yawned hugely. “I’m going to bed,” she declared. Andy didn’t miss the look she gave Cassidy. Or the none-too-surreptitious elbow to Cassidy’s ribs.

“Oh. Yeah.” Cassidy stuffed the last bite of her s’more into her mouth and scrambled to her feet. “Me too.” 

“Good night, girls,” Andy said with amusement, watching them leapfrog each other in their hurry to get to their tent. A moment later, they disappeared inside, and the door’s zipper slid closed. 

She looked at Miranda. The campfire was basically just embers, now. All she had to do was put the cover on the fire pit to put it out—no water or sand bucket at Bothe Grove. Cassidy was right; this wasn’t camping. 

In the dim light of the dying fire, Miranda smiled at her. 

Not camping, no. But pretty great, all the same.

***

_Miranda_

She thought Andrea had been about to say something, but then a phone chimed.

She actually thought it was hers, at first, but then she remembered that it was one AM in New York, and even Irv wasn’t brave enough to text her in the middle of the night. 

Andrea was patting her sides. “Where—oh.” She found it in the pocket of her hoodie. Unlocked the screen.

It hadn’t been so long that Miranda had forgotten Andrea’s body language, after all. Her slender shoulders drew up with displeasure, curving into a protective hunch. She frowned at the screen. Miranda’s heart flipped over in her chest, although she couldn’t say exactly why.

“Something wrong?” She tried to keep her voice light, disengaged.

Andrea made a face and stuck the phone back in her pocket. “No.” Then she sighed heavily and sat back down. “Yes. I don’t know.”

Another flip. She should say something, shouldn’t she? That was the appropriate response. But she couldn’t, for the life of her, think of what that _something_ might be.

Andrea slid down in her chair, stretched both legs out in front of her, and tipped her face toward the stars. She didn’t elaborate, just sighed again. 

Miranda waited. She felt a little as though she was standing on tiptoe at the edge of a cliff.

Finally: “I make a lot of mistakes.”

Her voice was heavy. Not the tone to which Miranda was accustomed, from Andrea. 

She cleared her throat. “No more than anyone else, I’m sure.”

Andrea lifted her head long enough to give her a wry look. “Thanks,” she said.

Miranda’s heart, no longer flipping, suddenly felt leaden. “Oh—” she started, but Andrea cut her off.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know what you meant.” 

_No_ , Miranda thought, _you don’t_. 

“I think I just got—I was lonely, you know?” Andrea said, sounding as though she was addressing the night sky more than Miranda. “And he’s—well, he’s _Christian Thompson_. I sort of couldn’t believe he was even interested in the first place.”

Miranda felt sudden bright fury at the very idea that Andrea should be flattered by the attention of some—some common _journalist_ . As though anything he did—anything he _was—_ could possibly outshine any of her accomplishments. She opened her mouth to point this out, but Andrea was still talking.

“I don’t date,” she said, and Miranda remembered Cassidy’s incredulous words on the plane. _She never._

“Ah,” Miranda said, and found she had nothing to follow. 

“I just thought I should, you know, _try_.” Andrea’s voice sounded suddenly tight. “I never tried, after you. And it seemed like a good idea while Cass was away, but now—”

Miranda knew. She knew exactly what it was to be swept off one’s feet by some buffoon with a silver tongue. She also knew exactly the type of man who would resent the reality of Andrea’s motherhood. 

“You shouldn’t marry him,” she said.

Andrea sat upright so fast she knocked the bottle of Pinot over with her foot. She stared at Miranda, her dark eyes shining in the firelight.

Miranda’s heart was racing, now. Her face felt hot, and not from the embers. She shouldn’t have said it, but she found she was unable to regret her words.

Andrea didn’t say another word. She just kept her glittering gaze on Miranda. After a long moment she stood, picked up the bottle, and walked back to their tent.

***

_Andy_

Miranda didn’t come back to the tent until after midnight. Andy almost stuck her head out to check on her—to make sure she didn’t get eaten by a mountain lion, or something; after all, _indoorsy—_ but then she heard the scrape and grit of boots on gravel. She ducked her head under the covers. It was ridiculous and childish to feign sleep, but yeah. That was basically where she was, at this point.

She’d taken the bed. It was the least Miranda could do, after what she’d said.

_You shouldn’t marry him_.

Oh, and _what_? Andy didn’t exactly recall Miranda hurtling toward the altar. She didn’t have a leg to stand on. 

But she was finding it really, bewilderingly difficult to hold onto any quantity of affront at Miranda’s words.

A late night, wine-fueled outburst from one’s ex-girlfriend—even if said ex-girlfriend was also the mother of one’s children—was hardly a reason to dissolve an engagement. No matter how brief the engagement was, or how suddenly questionable the second party had become. 

Andy’s head was beginning to hurt. She shut her eyes. 

She heard Miranda moving quietly around the tent. The soft rustle of backpack ripstop. The sound of clothing being removed, shaken out. 

And then, the unmistakable sound of a zipper being drawn down. Of Andy’s old cargo shorts being pushed over pale hips. Of a T-shirt pulled over wintry hair and discarded.

Andy’s throat seemed to close. She clenched her jaw.

_Go to sleep_ , she told herself fiercely, trying not to hear. _Just go to sleep_.

The futon clanked when Miranda folded it down, and she heard Miranda’s soft hiss. For a moment, nothing. Then the creak of wood as Miranda laid down. The whisper of fleece blankets.

She used to curl around Miranda at night. _Big spoon_ , she would giggle, burying her nose in Miranda’s shoulder. When the pregnancy test turned positive, even though there would be no telltale bump for months and months, she declared herself the little spoon.

She drew her knees up to her chest in the darkness. Remembered Miranda’s body warm against her back. 

Tried to sleep.


	6. we really ring the bell

_ Cassidy _

I’m so comfortable that for a moment I forget where I am. It’s  _ bright _ , so I know I’m not in my room. 

I hear birds. Distant voices. Someone breathing. 

Warmth in my chest when I remember.  _ My sister _ . And ten yards away, I have  _ two _ moms. 

No yelling last night, at least not that I heard. If they fought, they did it quietly. Maybe they didn’t fight. Maybe they had a nice, romantic conversation by the fire. Maybe they realized they still loved each other. Maybe they  _ kissed _ , which would be awesome, but also, a little bit ew.

At the very least, maybe Mom will realize she doesn’t want to marry Stupid Christian, after all. She hasn’t even  _ introduced _ me. Not the real me, anyway. The first time I meet him is going to be at the wedding. That’s pretty messed up.

“You talk in your sleep,” Caroline says. 

I roll over. Caroline is looking at me blearily. “Really?” I say interestedly.

“You did it at camp, too.” Caroline stretches and sits up. “I kept forgetting to tell you.”

If Mom marries Christian, we can kiss these morning conversations good-bye. I just know it. Every time Christian’s name comes up, Mother just shuts off. If he sticks around, I’ll never see her or Caroline again. I’m sure of it.

“Mom cannot marry  _ that guy _ ,” I say fiercely.

Caroline makes a horrible face. “She won’t,” she says, but it doesn’t sound like she believes it.

*

I don’t  _ love _ fishing, but I do it because Mom likes it. To be honest, I feel bad for the fish. Caroline, on the other hand, hooks one trout and goes completely insane.

“I got one!” she screeches, hopping up and down. The fishing rod jerks in her hands and she clutches at it. “Mom! Help!” 

Mom’s laughing so hard she almost can’t show Caroline how to pull and reel, pull and reel. By the time the trout is flopping on the shore, Caroline is nearly cross-eyed with excitement. “Can we eat it?”

“ _ Caroline. _ ” Mother is staring at her, appalled.

“Take my picture.” Caroline grabs for the fishing line and dangles the writhing fish near her head. 

Mom wipes her eyes, still laughing. Takes Caroline’s picture, then removes the hook from the poor trout’s mouth and tosses it in the cooler.

***

_ Andy _

“I think TMZ should have a segment,” Andy said thoughtfully, poking at the last few bites of trout with her fork, “on Miranda Priestly doing normal-people things.”

Miranda gave her a withering look. “Very funny.”

“I’m serious!” Andy put the plate down and ticked off her points on her fingers. “You slept in a tent. You hiked. You caught a  _ fish _ .” 

Miranda held up one finger. “Caroline caught the fish.”

Caroline stopped shoveling trout in her mouth long enough to look up at her mother. “You caught it!” she said with her mouth full. “I just reeled.”

“You’re wearing cargo shorts,” Andy added.

Miranda looked down. Sighed. 

“Well,” she said. “On that point, I suppose you’re right.”

***

_ MIranda _

“I’ll be back in a little while,” Andrea said.

She was looking at her phone, her shoulders pulled tight and anxious as she stood. Miranda saw the twins exchange a worried glance.

“Girls,” she said, “let’s go clean these plates.”

Caroline watched Andrea disappear into the twilit woods behind the tents, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Cassidy looked equally fretful. 

“Girls,” Miranda said again, and this time, they stood up. 

She shouldn’t have found camaraderie in the looks on their faces. She shouldn’t, but she did, because she was worried, too.

*

Andrea came back fifteen minutes later, looking tired and very pale.

“I think I’m going to hit the hay,” she said, and her voice sounded thin.

“Mom?” Cassidy’s eyes were wide with alarm.

Andrea reached over and ran a hand through her hair. “I’m fine, sweetheart,” she said. “Just tired.” She kissed first Cassidy, and then Caroline. “Good night.”

When she had gone, Miranda found herself pinned by two anxious blue stares. Cassidy and Caroline looked at her. And continued to look at her. And continued to look at her, until at last Miranda stood up.

“I’ll talk to her,” she said shortly. “Go to bed.”

*

When Miranda entered the tent, Andrea was not curled up with the blanket over her head, as she’d been the previous night. She was lying on her back on the bed, hands folded on her stomach, ankles crossed. She didn’t look at Miranda.

“Hi,” she said to the ceiling.

Miranda sat down on the futon cautiously. “Andrea.”

“What are we going to do?” 

Her voice wasn’t colorless now, nor was it overwhelmed with emotion. Which was why Miranda was startled to see tears trickling down her cheeks and dripping into her hair. 

“What—” Miranda started to get up and thought better of it. “What do you mean?”

“About the girls.” Her voice still eerily calm. “We can’t separate them.”

Miranda looked down at her hands. “No,” she said. “We can’t.”

“I guess.” Andrea hesitated. “I guess you can take them for six months, and then I can take them for six months...”

Two different schools. Two different lives, three time zones apart. Six months in an empty house, and her daughters three thousand miles away. “That could work.”

Silence, and the sound of Andrea’s breathing. Long breaths. Then: “I’m not marrying Christian.”

***

_ Andy _

She wasn’t crying because she’d broken it off with Christian. Weirdly, the only thing she felt was relief. She hadn’t realized, before the phone call, how pressured she’d felt. How anxious. It had only been two months, after all. 

He didn’t sound  _ angry _ , exactly. More annoyed than anything else. Certainly not hurt. Barely even sad. 

“The deposit is non refundable,” he’d said, and Andy breathed out. 

“You know what?” she’d said. “Don’t worry about it.”

No, she wasn’t crying about Christian. She wasn’t crying for any reason she could discern, actually. 

Cassidy would be well cared for with Miranda. Caroline went to a school that cost more than most private colleges. She played Rachmaninov. She  _ fenced _ . And they’d be together, which was what mattered.

Miranda hadn’t said a word. She was still sitting, motionless, hands tightly linked in her lap. 

“It can’t be fixed, can it,” Andy said, and her voice caught on the last word.

She heard Miranda’s tiny inhale. Saw the way her whole body tensed. “Andrea—” 

“You know what I miss?” Andy said. She took a deep, shaky breath. 

A whisper, barely audible. “What?”

“I miss—” Another breath. “I miss finding your Post-Its in my work bag.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Andy saw Miranda clasp a hand over her mouth. And heard her make a small, heartbroken noise that sounded very much like a sob.

***

_ Caroline _

Something’s different.

I don’t know what, exactly. Everyone looks the same. Everyone said the same things this morning, as we packed up our stuff and put it in the back of the Highlander and climbed into our seats. Everyone  _ ate _ the same. Dunkin Donuts, to Mother’s obvious horror.

Everything seems the same, but something is really, definitely different.

Cassidy feels it too. I can tell. She keeps looking at me with her forehead all crinkled up. Mother’s not talking, but then, Mother never really talks that much in the car.

Cassidy puffs her cheeks and blows out hard, then slumps sideways and presses her forehead to the window. She’s given up, apparently, on figuring out why everything feels so weird. She stays like that for a little while, fingers tapping on her knee, and then she turns her head a little. Toward the driver’s seat. Toward Mom.

The fingers stop tapping.

Cassidy’s head whips toward me so fast that her hair flies out around her head like a shampoo commercial. Her eyes are  _ enormous. _ Her mouth is opening and closing like one of the trout I caught.

_ What? _ I mouth to her.

She flaps her left hand violently. With the right, she points to Mom.

I fling my arms out.  _ What?!  _ I mouth again.

Her eyes are bugged out so far I’m a little afraid they’re going to pop right out of her head. She sticks up the third finger of her left hand.

_ RING _ , she mouths frantically.  _ IT’S GONE. _


	7. we could be sharing all we've got

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god you guys SO MUCH happens in the parent trap

_Andy_

The girls were quiet driving back to the house.

So quiet, in fact, that Andy started to suspect that something else was up. By the time they pulled into the driveway, she couldn’t take it any more.

“All right,” she said, turning off the car and swiveling in her seat, “out with it.”

Caroline and Cassidy exchanged a look. “What?” Cassidy said, wide-eyed.

“Don’t give me that,” Andy said. “You’ve been zip-lipped this whole car ride. What’s going on?”

When neither twin replied, Miranda spoke up. “Girls. Your mother asked you a question.”

The eyes got wider. “Can you give us a minute?” Caroline said.

Andy met Miranda’s gaze for a half-second, then closed her eyes in resignation. Yeah, she could definitely feel her hair getting grayer by the minute. “Sure,” she said.

Cassidy unbuckled her seatbelt and crawled into the backseat. Caroline followed. Andy watched incredulously as Cassidy unzipped her hoodie, took it off, and draped it over both her and Caroline’s heads.

“Are you seeing this?” Andy murmured to Miranda.

Miranda looked torn between amusement and irritation. “Let’s just—” She opened her car door.

“Right.” Andy opened hers, too.

It was humid and overcast, and the painted wooden stairs of her porch were beaded with water. “Careful,” Andy said, reaching over to take Miranda’s arm as she ascended. 

Miranda looked at her, eyebrows lifted. 

Andy blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just— they’re old steps, and—” She broke off.

But Miranda wasn’t pulling her arm out of Andy’s grasp. And Andy found herself strangely reluctant to let go.

They sat on the porch, Miranda on one end of the bench swing and Andy on the other. The girls still hadn’t emerged from the car. 

“So, um.” Andy kicked a little, setting the swing to a gentle sway. “I can call my attorney on Monday...have Cassidy’s paperwork updated, and, um.” She cleared her throat and glanced quickly at Miranda. “Strike the termination of rights for you. If that’s okay.”

Miranda’s cheeks were pink. “Yes,” she said, her voice a little unsteady. “I’ll do the same. Thank you, Andrea.”

“I can bring her out for a visit before school starts,” Andy added. “She can do the first semester here. Second semester at Dalton.”

When Miranda didn’t reply, Andy glanced at her again. The fingertips of her left hand were pressed lightly to her lips. She looked as though she was on the verge of tears.

“Miranda?” Andy said, her stomach sinking. She’d rushed it. She should have let Miranda get back home—should have at least given her a day or two to adjust to the idea of a six-month split. She’d spent half of the previous night wide awake, running through the logistics of shared custody across three thousand miles, and she had sort of forgotten that Miranda probably hadn’t done the same.

Unfortunately, at that moment, the back door of the Highlander opened, and the twins came tumbling out. 

Miranda blinked. Straightened. Her eyes came back into focus, and the tremulous expression cleared.

“Ask her,” Caroline hissed at Cassidy as they approached the porch.

“ _You_ ask her,” Cassidy hissed back.

“ _Girls._ ”

It was the Runway voice, cool and formidable, the one Andy remembered so clearly from her time as Miranda’s assistant. A look of terror flashed across Cassidy’s face, and Andy had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. 

Miranda’s tone softened. “Now,” she said, “what’s the question?”

***

_Cassidy_

Caroline elbows me in the ribs. I have to ask. I _know_ I have to ask, because as she reminded me in the car, I’ve known Mom longer. I did point out that Caroline had actually _met_ Christian, but she said that was irrelevant.

“I _know_ ,” I say to her crossly. Mom and Mother are both looking at me expectantly. I can feel myself blushing. 

“Uh, Mom.” I grimace and look away. “So we noticed...I mean, I noticed...we were just wondering, no big deal, but...”

Mom looks pained. “ _Cassidy_ ,” she says.

“ _Fine!”_ I shriek. “Is the wedding off?”

***

_Caroline_

She could have said that in, like, eight hundred ways that would have been more tactful. I could have done it, but I was scared to ask, too. And besides, she noticed the ring’s absence first.

Mom’s face turns as red as Cassidy’s. She looks down at her bare left hand. 

“Yes,” she says, and it’s all I can do to keep from jumping up and down and punching the air. 

The answer seems to give Cassidy courage. “For good?” 

“Yes,” Mom says firmly. “For good.”

Cassidy grins hugely. “ _Awesome_ ,” she says.

I elbow her again, harder this time. No matter how happy we are, it’s rude to be that excited about a broken engagement. “Shut up,” I mutter.

I’m so focused on getting Cassidy to behave that I almost don’t notice the expression on Mother’s face. I bet even Cassidy doesn’t see it, but then, she doesn’t know Mother like I do.

She’s looking off into the distance as though she’s not paying attention, but I know she’s listening to every word. Her eyes are bright. There’s the tiniest, tiniest smile on her lips.

It’s the same expression she wears when I get an A on an essay. When Runway has a particularly good issue. When Scottleigh Ashmore’s mom says something stupid at a PTA meeting.

Mom’s not engaged any more. 

And Mother is _really_ happy.

***

_Miranda_

_For good_.

The words left Andrea’s lips and lodged themselves directly into Miranda’s heart. And despite herself—despite every molecule of self-preservation in her body—she started to hope.

***

_Andy_

“Well, that was incredibly awkward,” Andy murmured, watching the twins disappear into the house.

Miranda didn’t appear to be listening. She was looking out at the vineyards, an odd expression on her face. 

“Hey.” Andy touched her arm. 

Miranda’s eyes dropped to Andy’s hand on her arm, then up to Andy’s face. She looked as though she didn’t quite know what to say.

Andy flushed and let her hand fall. “Um,” she said, and God, could she just form a _single_ sentence? Cassidy had really thrown her off with that high-decibel inquiry.

She tried again. “If you. Um. If you can’t get the room back at your hotel. You’re welcome to stay here.” The words came out at all different speeds and all different volumes. Good _God_ , Sachs.

Stupid to even ask. Of course Miranda would have thought of that. Emily had rebooked the flight for tomorrow, and she wouldn’t have forgotten to—

“Yes,” Miranda said. 

Andy stared at her. “Really?”

“I would be—” Miranda looked down. “Very grateful, Andrea. Thank you.”

Andy followed her gaze. And felt her blush deepen when she realized that Miranda was looking at the finger where her engagement ring had been.

*

Miranda closed herself in the guest room for the better part of two hours—undoubtedly, Andy thought, scouring the great outdoors off of her body.

Then she had to basically douse her brain in cold water, because thinking about Miranda’s body was a slippery fucking slope. In all possible ways.

Cassidy and Caroline, too, had sequestered themselves in the bedroom with Cassidy’s Nintendo Switch. So Andy was left to her own devices for the majority of the afternoon. She FaceTimed Lily—the meeting with the fertilizer guys had gone well, and Harry had finished the grafts, and as a bonus, the three new barrels they’d ordered had come in a week early—and then she worked on the books for a while, and then she gave up pretending she was going to be able to do anything else with Miranda Priestly in her guest room.

She poured a glass of the Pinot Grigio Miranda had brought, went out to the patio, and half-collapsed in the chaise. 

She should have been getting married tomorrow. She _would_ have been getting married tomorrow, had it not been for Caroline. 

That was true. Wasn’t it?

No. She probably wouldn't have done it. It was crazy to marry someone you’d known for two months, no matter how high a pedestal you’d put them on. No matter how hard they’d tried to make you believe it was love. Even without the twin mix-up, she surely would have come to her senses before she actually walked down the aisle.

She would have.

Probably.

But she kept hearing Miranda’s voice in her head. _You shouldn’t marry him_ . Miranda had said it, and Andy had dropped Christian not twenty-four hours later without so much as a _flinch_.

Oh.

Oh, _no_.

***

_Miranda_

Andrea was very quiet during dinner. So quiet, in fact, that Cassidy and Caroline exchanged worried looks, then volunteered to do the dishes. 

“Go ahead, girls,” Miranda said, taking the stack of plates out of Caroline’s hands. “I’ll take care of this.”

Caroline stared. “But Mother, you—”

“Go,” Miranda said firmly.

They went.

Miranda washed and Andrea dried, and it felt both familiar and foreign, like a well-worn sweater put on inside-out. 

Andrea ran the dish towel along the rim of the last wine glass. Set it down. Looked at Miranda out of the corner of her eye.

“I have something to show you,” she said.

It was impossible to interpret the tone of her voice; it was calm, even, devoid of any discernible emotion. She might have been telling Miranda that tomorrow would be partly cloudy.

Miranda shook the water off her hands and accepted the towel Andrea held out. “All right,” she said.

Andrea walked out of the kitchen. Didn’t say _come on_ or _this way_ , just turned and left. Miranda found herself with little other choice but to follow.

“Where are we—” And stopped as Andrea opened the door just before Cassidy’s bedroom.

“Did I tell you that I also collect wine?” she said, flipping a light switch and starting down the stairs.

It was the only part of the house that had clearly been remodeled. The stair treads were scraped walnut, the railing stainless steel. Several thermostats on the walls monitored the temperature of various parts of the cellar. There were racks of wine on three walls, and a glass door on the fourth. 

“A lot of it came with the house,” Andrea said, glancing back at Miranda. She seemed to relax as she came down the stairs, and the strange, no-expression tone had vanished. “But it’s pretty easy to accumulate.”

Miranda touched a bottle—the label said 1974. “It’s lovely.”

“I’ve, um.” Andrea paused in front of an oak cabinet. 

Something in her posture—something in the way she trailed a fingertip over the cabinet door—made Miranda’s pulse pick up. She remembered, suddenly, how those hands had felt on her skin. How they’d stroked, and caressed, and twined in Miranda’s hair. She clenched her jaw against the onslaught of memory.

“I wasn’t going to—” Andrea broke off a second time, then sighed and opened the cabinet. “Here,” she said.

In the cabinet were twelve dusty bottles, all with the same simple white label. Andrea lifted one gently. Put it into Miranda’s hands.

Miranda looked down. _Chateau de la Guimoniere Cabernet d’Anjou Rose, 1989_. 

For some reason, her palms started to sweat. For some reason, she trembled.

“It took me a long time to track these down,” Andrea said, and now her voice had gone quiet. Miranda was suddenly absolutely certain that if she looked up now, Andrea’s dark eyes would be bright with tears.

She kept her gaze on the bottle.

“Andrea,” she whispered. “What is this?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Andrea take a step. And then almost dropped the bottle when Andrea’s hand came up and covered hers. 

“It’s the wine we drank that night in Paris,” Andrea said softly. “I own every bottle ever made.”

Miranda looked up.

Eyes liquid dark, expansive. Lips parted. Her hand warm on Miranda’s.

Miranda could barely form the words. “You do?”

Andrea's lashes swept downward and up again. Her lips curved.

“I do,” she murmured.

She was so close, now, that her breath puffed warm on Miranda’s lips. The floor fell away. The world swam.

And from upstairs, Cassidy yelled “ _Mom_!”


	8. nothing could be greater

_Andy_

To Miranda’s credit, she didn’t bolt like a spooked horse. Andy wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. She herself wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, and she was the one who had _orchestrated_ this entire situation. 

“I have done such a _shit_ job of teaching her manners,” Andy murmured, her eyes closed, her lips an inch from Miranda’s.

And then Miranda stepped back. 

Andy’s heart crashed through her stomach. Stupid idea. Stupid, and reckless, and doomed. What had she been thinking? What had—

Miranda looked utterly shattered. She was staring at Andy as though she’d never seen her before in her life. 

_Please_ , Andy wanted to say, and _I’m sorry_. 

What she said instead was, “Coming, honey,” because Cassidy had yelled for her a second time.

*

When Miranda came up from the cellar, she was carrying a bottle of the Cabernet. She looked like herself again.

“Do you mind?” she asked, setting the bottle on the kitchen counter.

Relief loosened Andy’s knees. She actually swayed. 

“You’re the only one I’d drink it with,” she said.

*

The girls went to bed at nine, although Andy had said they could take the Nintendo with them, so it was unlikely they were actually going to sleep. 

“She’s not allowed to have any of those electronics, usually,” Miranda said with amusement, listening to the sound of MarioKart and muffled giggles from Cassidy’s room. 

“Yeah, well.” Andy shrugged. “Vacation.”

“Mm.” Miranda tucked the corners of her mouth in and looked down at her wine. “I suppose so.”

“Come sit down.” 

Miranda crossed the room and sat down at the kitchen table opposite Andy. Andy nudged the bottle toward her, but she shook her head.

“Enough, I think,” she said. “Before a flight.”

The words dragged at Andy’s mood like an overloaded backpack. “Right,” she said. 

“Thank you for the guest room,” Miranda added.

“Oh.” Andy flushed. “Sure.”

For a moment, on the campout, it had almost felt—well, not _easy_ , exactly, but _almost._ It made Andy feel as though it _could_ be easy one day. As though the potential was there. Miranda in Andy's worn-out clothes, hiking and catching fish. Miranda by the fire. Miranda asleep five feet away.

She hadn’t intended to show her the wine. If Miranda hadn’t told Andy not to marry Christian, she probably wouldn’t have. She’d have closed her still-blazing torch in the oak cabinet, even though she risked sending the whole thing up in flames.

“I’m sorry,” Andy said.

Miranda looked for a moment as though she was going to say _For what_ , to play dumb, to pretend that moment in the cellar hadn’t happened. Andy could actually _see_ her decide against it.

“So am I,” she said quietly.

Oh, that hurt.

Andy blinked hard against the sudden sting of tears. “I think I’ll head to bed,” she said, standing up so fast she almost knocked the chair over. 

Miranda stood too. “Andrea—”

But Andy was already halfway down the hall. She managed to get her bedroom door closed behind her just before the first tears fell.

***

_Cassidy_

It’s raining when they leave.

I don’t want them to fly in the rain. It’s a dumb thought. I’ve flown a million times in bad weather. A few bumps, no big deal. But I _don’t_ want them to fly in the rain.

Caroline holds my hand the whole way to the airport. Her face is pinched and anxious. I am trying very hard not to cry.

But then we get to security, and she’ll go in, and I won’t. 

She hugs me goodbye. Whispers “I’ll see you in two weeks” in my ear. Turns quickly away. 

I see her tears anyway. It doesn’t matter, though, because I’m already crying.

***

_Caroline_

It’s raining in California, and when I check the weather on my phone, I see that it’s raining at home. Napa rain is nice. It smells good, and it settles the dust, and there’s almost always a rainbow after. New York rain just makes everything slimy and sloshes the trash around. 

I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go back to our townhouse, to my lonely room and my lessons and schedules and no Cassidy. I’ve had her for nine weeks. It should have been twelve years. I’ve missed her all my life. 

Mother reaches over to stroke my hair, but I don’t want her to touch me. For a moment, I hate her. Hate Mom, too, for ripping us apart. For making us live two separate lives, separated by an entire continent. She gets the message. She drops her hand.

“Do you want something to eat?” She tilts her head in the direction of the Starbucks across from our gate.

Cassidy had stuffed Oreos and Twizzlers into my carry-on. “I’m not hungry.”

“Caroline—” Her voice sounds as thin as paper. She’s still wearing her sunglasses.

I pull the hood of my sweatshirt up and sink down into my chair. It’s still an hour until our flight, and she doesn’t try again. 

***

_Andy_

Cassidy didn’t say a word for most of the way back from the airport. The only sounds she made were tiny sniffles that made Andy feel as though someone was putting her heart through a wood chipper. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Andy said at last, glancing into the rearview mirror. 

Cassidy pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her hands and wiped her eyes. “No.” 

“You’ll see her in two weeks.” She tried to keep her voice light. Tried to convey some hopefulness, for her daughter’s sake, even though she, too, felt like crying. 

Cassidy pulled her sweatshirt hood up and tucked her chin. “That’s not the point,” she said miserably.

Andy’s throat felt tight. She swallowed hard. “I know.”

*

As soon as they got home, Cassidy went into her room and shut the door. Andy sort of felt like doing the same thing, but if she let herself wallow, she’d never be able to extricate Miranda fro her psyche. 

She started a load of laundry, then went into the kitchen to put away the dishes. The bottle of wine, mostly gone, was corked on the counter. They should have finished it last night. She sort of wished they had; being drunk would have given her an excuse to tell Miranda that she didn’t want her to leave.

She washed the wine glasses, hung them back on the rack. Wiped down the counters. Made herself a cup of tea. 

She’d fly out to New York with Cassidy. She’d spend time with Caroline then. In a year, she’d have them both with her. It would be fine. It would be _fine_.

So why did she feel so hollow?

When she ran out of corners to putter in, she laid down on the couch. Cassidy still hadn’t come out of her room. 

She pulled the throw blanket up to her chin and closed her eyes.

*

“Mom?”

Andy jerked awake. “Cass!”

Cassidy was sitting on the coffee table staring at her. “You never sleep on the couch,” she said. “Are you sick?”

“No, honey.” Andy sat up, wincing as her back twinged. “What time is it?”

“One-thirty,” Cassidy said.

One-thirty. The flight would already be in the air. Andy’s limbs felt like lead.

“What do you say we go for ice cream?” Andy said, forcing a smile. “Nonna’s?”

Cassidy’s smile looked forced, too. “Sure,” she said. 

And then the doorbell rang.

***

_Cassidy_

I freeze, and so does Mom. We stare at each other.

“It’s probably Lily,” Mom says, her voice almost a whisper.

“Lily has a key,” I whisper back.

I get up first. I take a step toward the front door and look back at her. She’s white as a sheet. 

“I’ll get it,” she says, and stands up.

I want to yell at her _Walk faster_ but I don’t, because if she gets there and opens the door and it’s the Amazon guy or something, I am going to be crushed. Because as long as we don’t know, it could still be my sister and my mother on the front porch. 

Her hand’s on the doorknob, now. She unlatches the lock.

She opens the door. 

“Hi,” says Caroline.

***

_Andy_

From behind her, Andy heard Cassidy’s shriek of incoherent delight, and a half-second later she was knocked sideways as Cassidy shoved past and tackled her sister. 

“What are you _doing_ here?” Cassidy screeched, spinning Caroline around so fast they both tumbled onto the porch.

Caroline was laughing too hard to answer. “Ow. Ow, Cass, my _butt—”_  
  


“You’re supposed to be on the plane!” Cassidy planted an enormous messy kiss on the top of Caroline’s head. 

Andy was listening. She _was_. They were her children, and of course they were her absolute first priority in her life, and she was definitely paying attention to them. She definitely wasn’t gazing at Miranda as though Miranda was the only other person on the planet.

“What—” She swallowed. Her mouth had gone so dry it was hard to speak. “You’re here.”

Miranda came up the porch steps. It seemed to take an eternity. Beside her, Cassidy and Caroline had fallen still.

There was an expression on Miranda’s face that Andy had never seen before. It wasn’t sadness or regret. It wasn’t anger. 

It looked, if Andy was not very much mistaken, like longing.

Miranda stopped four feet in front of her. She didn’t reach for Andy, or Caroline, or Cassidy. She just stood there, hands clasped in front of her, eyes locked on Andy’s. 

“Twelve years ago,” she said, in a low voice, “you stood in front of me and asked me if I still wanted you.”

Andy’s throat seized up. All the breath left her lungs. She tried to say something in response—anything, even if it was just to point out that Miranda had finally acknowledged that yes, that had happened—but she found that she was literally incapable of speech. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cassidy sit up and reach for Caroline’s hand.

“You left,” Miranda said, taking a tiny step toward Andy. “And I let you.”

Andy felt her cheeks begin to burn. Felt her heart rate jump. Still, she didn’t move. 

Miranda took another step. She was two feet from Andy now. Close enough that Andy could reach out and take her by the waist, if she wanted to. 

There were tears in Miranda’s eyes, but she was still talking. “That it has taken me this long to realize the enormity of my error—the loss of you—” And now her voice started to shake. “Andrea...it is my greatest regret.”

Andy closed the distance between them. Reached forward, and wrapped Miranda’s cold fingers in her own.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Andy whispered, and kissed her.

There was no hesitation, not even the slightest pause. Miranda kissed her back at once, pulling her hands out of Andy’s and bringing them to either side of Andy’s neck. She tasted like lipstick and tears. She felt like coming home.

Beside her, Andy heard two tiny gasps of shock. Scrabbling feet. A squeal of glee, and the sound of a hand being slapped quickly over a mouth.

She smiled against Miranda’s lips. 

The kids, this time, could wait.

***

_2019_

_Emily_

If you had told the Emily Charlton of twelve years ago that she would be sitting in a New York City courthouse watching Miranda Priestly marry Andrea Sachs, the Emily Charlton of twelve years ago would have laughed in your face. 

It’s been a year of plane tickets, and coordinating schedules, and smoothing Irv’s ruffled feathers when he realizes that Miranda’s out of town yet again. Fortunately, Emily isn’t on Irv’s payroll. More importantly, Emily is very good at her job. 

Andy hired three employees to run her thirty percent of the vineyard. There’s a new Cabernet, one that tastes a little like a particular French wine from the late eighties. If there are enough bottles, Miranda will have it served at the MOMA gala in the spring. If there aren’t—well, Miranda will let someone else figure that out. There are fewer late nights, now. She’s learning to delegate.

Emily takes Cassidy and Caroline to Dalton every morning, and picks them up in the afternoon. Sometimes, when they get back to the townhouse, Miranda and Andy are already there. 

She watches them sign their names: Andrea, then Miranda. 

On one side of the officiant, Cassidy crosses first her fingers, then her forearms. From the other side, Caroline returns the gesture. They grin at each other.

If you had told the Emily Charlton of twelve years ago that she would spend countless hours on the phone with attorneys, unknotting the mountain of paperwork that had cleaved a little family in half for over a decade, the Emily Charlton of twelve years ago would have shaken her head at your idiocy and naïveté. 

But she knows a little more now. She knows that love persists, and second chances are possible. 

And sometimes, when it seems like something’s ended, it’s only just begun.

***

_A Sunday kind of love (Etta James)_

_I want a Sunday kind of love_   
_A love to last past Saturday night_   
_And I'd like to know it's more than love at first sight_   
_And I want a Sunday kind of love_   
_Oh yeah, yeah_

_I want a a love that's on the square_   
_Can't seem to find somebody_   
_Someone to care_   
_And I'm on a lonely road that leads to nowhere_   
_I need a Sunday kind of love_

_I do my Sunday dreaming, oh yeah_   
_And all my Sunday scheming_   
_Every minute, every hour, every day_

_Oh I'm hoping to discover_   
_A certain kind of lover_   
_Who will show me the way_

_And my arms need someone  
_ _Someone to enfold  
_ _To keep me warm when Mondays and Tuesdays grow cold  
_ _Love for all my life to have and to hold  
_ _Oh and I want a Sunday kind of love_

_Oh yeah, yeah, yeah_

_I don't want a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, Friday or Saturday_   
_Oh nothing but Sunday oh yeah_   
_I want a Sunday Sunday_   
_I want a Sunday kind of love_   
_Oh yeah_   
_Sunday, Sunday, Sunday kind of love_


End file.
